The former ex-patriate German priest and political activist, Joseph Mainzer, had made music the means of attempting to ameliorate the miseries of the poor in Germany, Belgium and France. His massed gratuitous singing classes became one of the sights of Paris late in the 1830s until the suspicions of the French police were aroused and he was forced to abandon them. After he took refuge in England in 1841, similarly large classes were begun in London under the title 'Singing for the Million', the title also given to his English textbook.

The work of a wealthy radical, this book enjoyed immense circulation in schools throughout the English speaking world for many years. The important preface presents new arguments for the teaching of music in schools; and the collection of children's songs which follows established the Moral Song as standard fare in 19th-century classrooms.

This, the first music textbook specifically designed for use in English schools, was published in 1833 under the auspices of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge - an evangelical body much concerned with -good works- and the furtherance of sound educational principles. The author was an experienced and influential London teacher, a practising musician and an advocate of the teaching methods of Pestalozzi, still then unfamiliar to most teachers in this country. Although the pioneer English teaching manual for schools, Turner's Manualis not just a minor historical curiosity.

When, in 1584, William Bathe, then just a young student at Oxford, published a tract on the teaching of music, his work became the first musical text book to appear in the English language. No copy of this work now exists, but some years later Bathe produced a new version, now called A brief Introduction to the skill of song. In it Bathe sought to present a new, much simpler way to learn music, in open opposition to the traditional approaches of the day, the -manifold and crabbed, confused, tedious rules-, as he puts it. This book, a facsimile of Bathe's work, describes musical methods old...

This volume presents reprints of the prefaces to representative collections of metrical psalms. Psalm-singing, an essentially popular form of music, required some musical knowledge in the singers, and it was in these prefaces that the compilers gave basic information on the staves, clefs and note-values of contemporary notation. Dr Rainbow's introduction is a fascinating guide to the changing tastes and needs shown by the carefully selected reprints.

Bernarr Rainbow's (1914-1998) Memoirs written in the last year or two of his life offers a fascinating read about the life of the man who became the leading historian of music education. The book answers questions about how his life and work developed and how he came to establish the Bernarr Rainbow Trust before he died in 1998. The collection will also bring together Rainbow's writings published in various magazines, some of very limited circulation. The notes by Peter Dickinson cover Rainbow's earlier life and career, from archival material including press cuttings and including areas he...

There is no question that music education is in crisis today. The place of music in the national curriculum is controversial; there have been cuts in the provision of individual lessons; and there have been severe reductions in government funding, with more planned. This book, containing the first five Bernarr Rainbow Lectures, makes an important and timely contribution to the debate on music education. Baroness Warnock brings the perspective of a distinguished philosopher to bear on issues about the nature of music and its study; Lord Moser urges us to maintain and expand what has been...

This is the first serious study of music in independent schools. The high standard of musical work in such schools has long been known but now Andrew Morris and his team have provided up-to-date information. There are contributions from seven individual schools - Bedford, Dulwich, Eton, Gresham's, St. Paul's, Uppingham and Worksop - as well as chapters about Girls' Schools, Preparatory Schools, Choir Schools and Specialist Schools. Andrew Morris was Director of Music at Bedford School for thirty-two years and was President of the Music Masters and Mistresses Association in 1996-97. He is thus...

John Wall Calcott (1766-1821) was one of a small number of English musicians who compiled influential treatises from the mid-eighteenth century onwards. He worked as an organist and teacher in London and gained the Oxford D.Mus. in 1800. His Musical Grammar is divided into four sections - Notation, Melody, Harmony and Rhythm - and his erudition is remarkable. He consulted existing treatises in six languages and his copious music examples concentrate on Handel but also range widely from Gibbons to Beethoven. His catches and glees as well as his Musical Grammar caused his celebrity to endure...

At the end of the eighteenth century a new kind of women music teachers had begun to appear, rivalling the old-style music master, to serve the more affluent classes. Miss Dorothy Kilner was a well-established author of children's books but also a musician. At this period, drawing-room pianists could find themselves called upon to accompany singers from an outline score with a figured bass. Subtitled 'Conversations of a Fortnight' Kilner's book is addressed to 'A Mother and her Daughter' and claims to be the first English treatise on the subject addressed to children, in this case precocious...